Visits to the Dealer
First Visit: Bewildered
Date: 7/30
Mileage = 1,510
1st repair order written.
After two weeks of waiting impatiently, Mrs. Jones took the car to the dealer. There she met a person called a service writer.6 She described as well as possible what she and her husband experienced driving the car. She also told the service writer about the air conditioning. He wrote up the repair order.
Keep in mind that Mrs. Jones wasn’t an auto mechanic, so her description wasn’t technical. She described the sounds she heard and what the car did. She also expressed her emotional response: remember, she almost had an accident as a result of the defect.
Sometimes there is a striking difference between what the owner describes as a problem and what the service writer puts on the repair order. A service writer may try to write a repair order in a way that makes sense to the mechanic. Other times, however, the service writer may alter the customer’s comments to make the problem look like something it is not.
It is important to know exactly at what point in time and at what mileage the defect is first presented to the dealer for repair.
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